A Waterfront Wedding Filled With Personality at the Owenego Inn

Isaac and Kate got married at the Owenego Inn in Branford, on a lawn above Long Island Sound. A wedding party thick with brothers, a ceremony performed by both their fathers, portraits out on a rock you reach by footbridge, and, after dark, an ice cream truck and two fathers in inflatable sumo suits.

Getting ready at the Omni

The day started at the Omni in New Haven, which was already part of the weekend. They’d held their welcome dinner there the night before, so the hotel was never somewhere to park everybody for a morning. The Owenego doesn’t have a getting-ready space of its own.

Isaac went first, with some of his groomsmen, then left for Branford. Kate came in with her mom and the two of them got ready together.

Then her dad arrived, and this is the first of two first looks.

He stood at a long, low mirror with his eyes shut while she came in behind him. Both of their faces end up inside the same frame, hers over his shoulder, and he is the only person in the room who can’t see what’s happening. Usually you have to choose between her face and his reaction. The mirror hands you both, one second before he turns around.

The first look, on the lawn

Then over to Branford, where Isaac and Kate saw each other on a shaded patch of grass under the trees.

Both of them had been waiting on it. She came up behind him, gave his shoulder a playful tap, and the look on his face when he turned around is the whole argument for doing a first look at all.

A wedding party full of brothers

Fifteen of them counting Isaac and Kate, and the split was ten groomsmen to three bridesmaids. A lot of them were brothers, which is where the lopsidedness came from. Eleven in navy with dusty rose ties, and a lawn big enough to run at.

A big wedding party isn’t automatically a good time. The more people you’re moving, the longer every combination takes, and that pressure lands on the couple rather than on anybody else. I’ve watched it turn a morning tense. This group was a lot of fun and took direction well, which is why a party that size ran as smoothly as it did.

The other half of it is when we photographed them. Bridesmaids, groomsmen, the full party and every family combination all happened before the ceremony. That costs you an earlier start and buys back the whole middle of the day. It’s why Isaac and Kate spent cocktail hour with their guests instead of standing in a field being arranged into rows, and why we could walk down to the water afterwards without anybody checking a watch.

The ceremony

Isaac's father and Kate's father performed the ceremony together. Kate's had had his moment in the mirror that morning; a few hours later he was standing up there marrying them.

I’d take a parent, a friend or somebody from the wedding party over an officiant you hired every time. It changes what a ceremony sounds like when the person reading it actually knows the two people in front of them.

One practical note if you go that way. Have whoever is officiating tell everyone to sit down after the processional. A hired officiant says that line without thinking about it. It’s easy to miss otherwise, and then the room either stays on its feet or sits a few at a time.

They came back out between a pair of vintage doors, which they had found online while looking for something nobody else would have. The doors stand open with nothing behind them, so the two of them come through a doorway into the same lawn they were already standing on. It shouldn’t work. It does.

Out on the rocks

This is the part of the Owenego that doesn’t turn up in the listing photos.

From the lawn it’s about a hundred yards down to the shore, and then a small footbridge takes you out onto a larger rock. You end up standing on what feels like your own island, a hundred yards and one bridge from a wedding in full swing.

It was my idea and it didn’t take much convincing. Dips, twirls, him lifting her off the ground. We went after the ceremony rather than before, which is the right order, because by that point there’s nothing left to keep the dress clean for.

The reception

First dance, then speeches from the best man, the maid of honor, and the two of them together to close it out. Then the parent dances, Kate with her father and Isaac with his mother.

The ice cream truck and the sumo suits

Three things happened after dark.

Isaac and Kate surprised their guests with an ice cream truck. Ben and Jerry's, parked outside for a late treat.

Both fathers disappeared and came back in inflatable sumo suits. They had planned it between them and told nobody. Then they had a competition on the dance floor.

And the chair lift had to happen outside. There isn’t enough height over the dance floor to get anybody up safely, so the whole thing moved out to the back patio and happened under the open sky, which is better anyway.

Somewhere in among all of it we slipped out to the gazebo, strung with lights, for a few quiet ones.

If you're planning something here

Six things I’d want to know, having shot a wedding there. The numbers come from the Owenego's own site and the rest from the day itself, so check the numbers against them before you plan around mine.

Parking isn’t a problem. There’s a grassy field beside the property and guests park on it.

Plan on a hotel for getting ready. The inn does have rooms, but only a handful, and their own site has a couple describing renting out all six of them for their party. Six goes fast. The Omni in New Haven worked for Isaac and Kate because they were already there for the welcome dinner, which is a tidy way to make the extra stop do two jobs.

There’s a minimum, and it’s the thing most likely to catch you out. Their site asks for a guarantee of a hundred people, whatever format you pick. If you’re planning something small, this isn’t your venue, and it’s better to know that before you fall in love with the water.

The ceiling depends on how you feed people. Two hundred for a sit-down dinner, a hundred and fifty for a dinner buffet, a hundred and thirty for a cocktail buffet. I’ll say that it didn’t read to me like a two-hundred-person room. Isaac and Kate had a single long farm-style table down the middle and it felt intimate, which I think is what the place is actually for.

The shore is a hundred yards and a footbridge away. Put it in the timeline rather than hoping for a gap in the day, and put it after the ceremony.

The dance floor is low. Anything that involves lifting a person off the ground goes outside on the patio.

I photograph weddings in Sarasota and across southwest Florida now. This one was in Connecticut, and it’s still the one I bring up when somebody asks what a relaxed wedding actually looks like.